Mother’s tears of pride as Louise Ní Mhuircheartaigh honoured for Kerry career
KERRY GOLD: Kerry's Louise Ní Mhuircheartaigh at the launch of TG4's award-winning Laochra Gael series. Pic: Tyler Miller/Sportsfile.
At the Lighthouse Cinema in Smithfield last week, Louise Ní Mhuircheartaigh glanced along the row to her mother. A parent’s pride in her child’s achievement was unmistakable.
They were in Dublin for the launch of the new season of TG4’s Laochra Gael. After All-Star and player of the year honours, a Laochra Gael episode is among the highest accolades a Gaelic games player can receive.
“We saw a bit of the promo there and I looked over at Mom, and she had tears in her eyes,” said Ní Mhuircheartaigh, one of Kerry’s outstanding footballers of the last two decades.
“A box of Kleenex will have to be beside her on the day (it airs).” It is 13 months since Ní Mhuircheartaigh called time on a 17-year inter-county career, and some of what followed, she said, was “difficult”.
On the night Kerry players received their All-Ireland medals in late 2024, she sensed something wasn’t right with her mother.
“I don’t think I was meant to be playing football last year,” she said.
“Mom had major heart surgery in April. She became very unwell and breathless. The night we got the medals on 13 December 2024, she was sitting at the table for the whole night and I said, ‘There’s something seriously wrong here.’ It was getting worse and worse.
“By late January/early February, she was in hospital and we were told about her heart. It was scary times.
“The surgery went very well in CUH and she got unbelievable care. We’re so grateful they caught it in time. She’s here, and she’s walking on the beach and the roads again.
“I was so glad, and so relieved, to be able to look after Mom and help her through her recovery. That was important. I don’t think I would have been able to focus fully on football in 2025 because of that.”
Kerry’s victory over Galway in the 2024 All-Ireland final, sealing the Kingdom’s first ladies’ football All-Ireland title in 31 years, brought relief for Ní Mhuircheartaigh. She had feared her career would end without lifting the Brendan Martin Cup.
Ní Mhuircheartaigh made her Kerry debut in 2008. Four years later, she was part of the side that lost an All-Ireland final to Cork. It would be another 10 years before Kerry returned to the decider. It was a period that included low points.
“There were definitely a few times I thought of stepping away,” she said.
“There was one game in particular, I think it was 2017. We had won Munster titles in 2013, 2015 and 2017, and they were major because Cork were so powerful during that period.
“Dublin beat us in a quarter-final and I was on the phone to (my brother) Colm and his now wife Niamh, and I said, ‘I don’t think I can keep going.’
“It was heartbreak after heartbreak. The dream was to win an All-Ireland and we weren’t even getting close.
“Training plans and management teams were falling through, and it just wasn’t a great environment.”
Kerry’s fortunes shifted when Declan Quill and Darragh Long were appointed joint managers. They promised the players an All-Ireland, and delivered.
Ladies football will trial 12 new rules during this year’s National League. Ní Mhuircheartaigh thinks the requirement to keep three players in attack at all times “would have been beautiful to play in”.
But it is not enough to lure the 34-year-old out of retirement.
“I’d given 17 years of my life to it,” she said. “I felt I had put everything into it. Getting over that line, I reached the pinnacle of my career. I think I’m content.
“When the management said they were stepping away, it felt right that I step away with them because they were extremely special in my life.
“We always kind of made a joke. They’d say, ‘If you go, we’ll go.’ I said, ‘If you go, I’ll go.’ We stuck to that. They did tell me, ‘Don’t make a decision because of our decision.’ I think the time was right.
“There’s a fantastic group of young players there. They’ll carry the flag and wear the jersey with pride. I’ll keep supporting them.”
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